Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: NGO Legitimacy and Accountability in Human Rights Standard Setting.

A primary indicator of a fair and legitimate process is whether those most affected are afforded meaningful opportunities for participation. Indeed, the right to participation in decision-making is a core principle of human rights law. Organizations holding a privileged role in the development of human rights ? including intergovernmental bodies such as the UN and non-governmental such as Human Rights Watch ? are increasingly subjected to scrutiny by reference to principles of legitimacy and are called to account for what they say and the locus of their authority for saying it. While constructivism has usefully examined questions of legitimacy and accountability in relation to core segments of human rights practice, IR offers little in the way of empirical research regarding the actual development of human rights law. This paper extends constructivist analysis to explore whether and how NGO power holders in UN human rights treaty processes apply principles of legitimacy and accountability in their leadership. It provides a case study of the newest UN human rights treaty initiative regarding disabled persons and identifies factors that facilitate or impede meaningful NGO participation, assesses the role of the UN in shaping NGO influence and suggests how such issues ultimately bear upon treaty implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]